nds picked up from the field of battle. Once I found a
splendid English revolver--but that is a story.

We were billeted in a model mining-village of red brick houses and
terra cotta tiles, where every door is just like the one next to it
and the whole place gives the impression of monotonous sameness
relieved here and there by a shell-shattered roof, a symbol of sorrow
and wanton destruction. In this place of an evening children may be
seen out of doors listening for the coming of the German shells and
counting the number that fall in the village. From our billets we went
out to the trenches by Vermelles daily, and cut the grass from the
trenches with reaping hooks. In the morning a white mist lay on the
meadows and dry dung and dust rose from the roadway as we marched out
to our labour.

We halted by the last house in the village, one that stood almost
intact, although the adjoining buildings were well nigh levelled to
the ground. My mate, Pryor, fixed his eyes on the villa.

"I'm going in there," he said pointing at the doors. (p. 266)

"Souvenirs?" I asked.

"Souvenirs," he replied.

The two of us slipped away from the platoon and entered the building.
On the ground floor stood a table on which a dinner was laid; an
active service dinner of soup made from soup tablets (2_d._ each) the
wrappers of which lay on the tiled floor, some tins of bully beef,
opened, a loaf, half a dozen apples and an unopened tin of _cafe au
lait_. The dinner was laid for four, although there were only three
forks, two spoons and two clasp knives, the latter were undoubtedly
used to replace table knives. Pryor looked under the table, then
turned round and fixed a pair of scared eyes on me, and beckoned to me
to approach. I came to his side and saw under the table on the floor a
human hand, severed from the arm at the wrist. Beside it lay a
web-equipment, torn to shreds, a broken range-finder and a Webley
revolver, long of barrel and heavy of magazine.

"A souvenir," said Pryor. "It must have been some time since that
dinner was made; the bully smells like anything."

"The shell came in there," I said pointing at the window, the side (p. 267)
of which was broken a little, "and it hit one poor beggar anyway.
Nobody seems to have come in here since then."

"We'll hide the revolver," Pryor remarked, "and we'll come here for it
to-night."

We hid the revolver behind the door in a little cupboard in the wall;
we came ba